How Does DreamMaker Help Remodelers?

New and existing remodelers grow thanks to strong margins, quality of life

As you learn about DreamMaker Bath & Kitchen, you’ll learn that when some of our most successful franchise owners were starting a home improvement business, they started by buying a DreamMaker franchise, while many others started their own remodeling business before partnering with DreamMaker.

The one thing that is consistent, no matter where our franchisees got their start, is a love of creative problem-solving and a passion for helping people live better lives through excellent design.

That creativity and passion for helping is what draws many people to remodeling in the first place. Men and women who love the craft and have great skills and an eye for detail can grow a business based on their great work and customer referrals. The trouble is, as the business grows, it can be hard for many remodelers to step back from the day-to-day work and concentrate on managing and growing the business. If you have a hands-on approach and touch every part of every single project your business handles, you will run out of hours in the day. That’s why it is so common for remodeling company owners to work 70-80 hours a week.

DreamMaker’s system is designed to prevent our franchisees from falling into that trap. Starting and running a business requires hard work and determination, but it shouldn’t be all-consuming. DreamMaker owners are the CEOs of their business — they’re not intended to be the full-time carpenter, salesman, marketing department and everything else, all by themselves. Instead, we have developed systems that help you hire the best people, delegate aspects of the business, and track performance.

Successfully starting a home improvement business

Steve Betts is a good example. The former banker owns the DreamMaker Bath & Kitchen franchises in Amarillo and Lubbock, TX, and started as a salesman for the Amarillo location. He had been wanting to start his own business, and met the former owner of the Amarillo franchise through the bank. “He told me how much he loved DreamMaker and how it has transformed the way he did business,” Steve says. “And he was making good money doing it.”

Steve was in charge of property management at the bank, so he had some experience subcontracting, and he is handy, but wouldn’t call himself a master craftsman. He doesn’t have to be.

“With this business, it is better to hire good contractors, teach them good business principles, turn them loose, and then focus on sales,” he says. “If you can sell and sell at high enough margins, you can pay for the best carpenter in town. I hire the A-team players and let them go wow customers.”

Giving Existing Remodelers a Boost

One of the things we do during training with an existing remodeler is to create an organizational chart of what their existing business looks like, then develop a plan for what that chart should look like in a year. Essentially, we help owners identify all the myriad roles they play within the company and help them identify ways to replace themselves in some of those positions, whether that means hiring an office manager or a lead carpenter. As sales increase and margins rise, you can hire the next person in your organizational chart, gradually building a business that doesn’t require you to wear every hat.

Steve Everett, who owns the DreamMaker Bath & Kitchen in Fredericksberg, VA, says the systems have transformed his life and allowed him to go from long days full of hard physical labor to a much easier schedule that leaves time for him to spend time with family and pursue neglected hobbies.

“I went from 80 hours a week to probably 50-55 hours a week — and it’s not the hard physical work that I was doing before, it’s more thinking and sitting at my desk. I actually have the energy to do the things I enjoy doing when I get home.” – Steve Everett

DreamMaker Bath and Kitchen Franchise Owners Help Each Other

DreamMaker’s systems give you the power to expand your operations so that the weight of running your business is shared, your business becomes more efficient, and you have people to turn to when you need help. That help comes from many more places than just our corporate team in Waco, TX.

When you join DreamMaker, you become part of a large family of franchise owners, and you also become part of a smaller, tight-knit family — our Next Level Groups.

Next Level Groups consist of six to eight franchise owners who make a commitment to helping each other succeed by examining one another’s businesses and offering suggestions and strategies for success. Every six months, Next Level Groups gather to take a detailed look at a single franchise operation, analyzing financials, marketing strategies and ROI, morale, margins and other aspects of the business. By bringing together five to seven other franchise owners who are running the same systems, the Next Level visits allow for a forensic analysis of your business that allows you to better understand your strengths as well as opportunities for improvements. The visiting franchise owners make suggestions and help their peer put together a list of ways to improve their business.

Between the visits, which rotate among Next Level participants, there are monthly conference calls where owners follow up, share ideas and hold one another accountable to meeting their benchmarks.

“It’s a way to dig down deep in your company, figure out what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong,” says Tracy Moore, who co-owns the DreamMaker Bath & Kitchen in Winston-Salem, NC. “DreamMaker gives you a lot of tools when starting a home improvement business, and we make sure everyone is using those tools to their fullest potential.”